After a two-year hiatus, HBO's "Veep" is returning on Sunday, March 31, for its seventh and final run that’s said to be more uncomfortable, biting, absurdist and uncanny than ever, Flipboard's Mia Quagliarello writes for Axios.
The scene: Season 7 sees Selina Mayer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) on the campaign trail, running for president again. This time her challengers include her on-and-off-again flame Tom James (Hugh Laurie), staffer Amy Brookheimer (Anna Chlumsky)'s ex-boyfriend Buddy Calhoun (Matt Oberg), and the smarmy Jonah Ryan (Timothy Simons).
- From there, the satire goes for the jugular—like when Selina tries to capitalize on a mass shooting to advance her campaign, or when Jonah becomes the face of the #NotMe movement, featuring women coming forward to say they didn't sleep with him.
Between the lines: When "Veep" launched in 2012, the political landscape was pretty different from what it is today. Even season 6 was in the can in 2016 before it could be too influenced by the current climate.
- But the need to pause production so that Louis-Dreyfus could go through cancer treatment let showrunner-director David Mandel re-examine shifting norms and mine real-life situations for the show.
- "If you look back at the previous six seasons, so much of the show was, ‘Oh my God, this is what a politician is like behind closed doors’ — but those closed doors are gone,” Mandel told Variety.
The bottom line: Louis-Dreyfus and Mandel took their cues from "Seinfeld" (where she played Elaine Benes and he was a writer) and sought to end the series on a creative high. "The storytelling dictated the end of the show," Louis-Dreyfus told Entertainment Weekly. “It felt right.”
The goodbye tour:
Earlier this week, Louis-Dreyfus went on "Jimmy Fallon" to unveil what she said was the first and only "Veep" blooper to become public.
If you're feeling sentimental about this end, watch this video in which the actors say a few final words to their characters.
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